Shoot 'Em Up hits the target

A thoroughly enjoyable movie is, surprisingly, writer-director Michael Davis's Shoot 'Em Up, a movie so fast and frenetic that it makes Sin City look like Atonement.

This is on one level the kind of picture that should be thoroughly deplored. It's a feature-length fetishisation of firearms, delighting in murder and mayhem.

And it's cheerfully hypocritical, with a script that pretends to be in favour of gun control while doing everything it can to persuade us that firearms are sexy, empowering and the coolest of fashion accessories.

So why is it a guilty pleasure? Basically, because it takes itself so unseriously that it's obviously intended to be a critique of its own demented genre.

From the opening shot, where Clive Owen is pictured in grizzled close-up like Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name but then spoils his image by chomping on a carrot and transforming himself into Bugs Bunny, it's funny.

Owen is so extravagantly macho that he makes machismo ridiculous.

He doesn't just deliver a baby, he shoots away its umbilical cord; when left literally holding the baby and pursued by bad guys, he snarls: "I'm a British nanny, and I'm dangerous."

Bad guy Paul Giamatti keeps having to take calls from his wife during scenes of carnage, in which he assures her that he will be home soon. Best of all, Owen's character is from the homicidal wing of Grumpy Old Men.

Mildly anti-social behaviour, such as sipping too noisily from a mug or changing lanes without signalling, is instantly punishable by death. In other words, this is harmless escapism - albeit with a grotesquely high body count.

Long after humourless critics and audiences who don't appreciate irony have pronounced it DOA, Shoot 'Em Up will be reincarnated as a gloriously silly cult movie. This is so gruesome and joyously tasteless that it's not for everyone, but if you have a dark sense of humour, see it.

The inspired action sequences are brilliantly staged and imaginatively shot, and at 86 minutes it doesn't outstay its welcome.

If you enjoyed Kiss Kiss Bang Bang or Lucky Number Slevin, this one's for you.